Two of three Bob Fergusons who filed for WA governor last week withdraw from race

Two of the three Bob Fergusons who filed for the packed Washington gubernatorial race last week withdrew their bids for the office Monday following threats of legal action as well as condemnation from other candidates in the race.

All three Bob Fergusons entered the race last week as Democrats.

Bob Ferguson, the state’s attorney general filed for governor earlier in the week, while the two other Bob Fergusons waited until later in the day Friday to file for governor with the Secretary of State before a 5 p.m. cutoff.

In a news conference Monday, AG Ferguson condemned the other candidates and threatened action against them if they did not withdraw by Monday’s 5 p.m. deadline to remove their intent to run for the office.

“We defeated their dirty tricks,” Ferguson later said Monday evening in a social media post. “Both fraudulent candidates withdrew. You won’t have to worry about which ‘Bob Ferguson’ to vote for. This blatant attack on election integrity failed, and democracy wins.”

Washington state law notes that a person can be guilty of a class B felony for filing for public office using “a surname similar to one who has already filed for the same office, and whose political reputation is widely known, with intent to confuse and mislead the electors by capitalizing on the public reputation of the candidate who had previously filed.”

Pacifica Law Group, a law firm that has represented the state in various other cases, wrote a letter to the Washington Secretary of State Monday asking the office to “mitigate voter confusion.”

Ferguson’s counsel said in the letter that the “illegitimacy” of the other Bob Fergusons’ “suspicious candidacies” is beyond dispute.

In a statement from Secretary of State Steve Hobbs Monday night, he said that “instances of people filing for office with names similar to well-known officeholders go back nearly a century in Washington and other states.”

“Voters deserve good-faith candidates who are running on the strength of their ideas to make Washington a better place to live and work, not people who pay a filing fee just to manipulate elections,” said Hobbs in the statement. “Washington’s long history of free and fair elections must be protected and preserved in every year and campaign cycle.”

Glen Morgan, the campaign manager for the two Bob Fergusons and a conservative activist, said in a statement on Facebook Monday that as the “corrupt and elite political class knows, you can always use the power of the state to threaten good people when they don’t do what you want.”

Both Bob Fergusons also posted statements to their websites Monday.

Graham resident Robert Ferguson said in the post that he was “faced with harassment and legal action” if he did not withdraw. He also noted that he was labeled a “threat to democracy” by another candidate.

“In a typical hypocritical fashion, this other candidate’s actions are the true threat to democracy,” he said. “I believe this shows that the other candidate fears he has not effectively done enough to stand out, or that he thinks voters are not competent enough to think for themselves.”

The other candidate, Bob Ferguson of Yakima, said in his post that “a dream” of his “was destroyed” and claimed that his colleagues from Central Washington State University encouraged him to run for governor “over a year ago.”

He noted that he was served a cease and desist letter from the attorney general’s gubernatorial campaign Sunday. Ferguson from Yakima also was served Sunday.

Both candidates’ websites went live Friday and had no posts until after the candidates withdrew from the race Monday.

Other gubernatorial candidates chimed in on the controversy Monday.

Mark Mullet, a current Democratic Senator in the Washington State Legislature, directed a message at both Bobs to withdraw before the end of the day Monday on social media.

“We don’t need anything to confuse voters on the ballot,” Mullet said. “This is an illegal sideshow that does nothing to improve our electoral process.”

Republican Dave Reichert, a former Sheriff for King County and former U.S. House Representative, also spoke out against the maneuver Monday, saying he didn’t “support any effort to deceive the voters of Washington state.”

GOP-backed candidate Misipati “Semi” Bird also posted to social media Monday, and said that he found AG Ferguson’s “whining” about the other Bobs to be “completely disingenuous.”

“Bob Ferguson is directly responsible for ‘undermining democracy’ in Washington state and will be held accountable via the vote of citizens who are fed up with career politicians and seek positive change and common sense governance,” Bird said.

The Secretary of State candidate filing page reflected the update to the list of gubernatorial candidates Monday.

Washington voters will choose between 28 candidates for governor in the August primaries.